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Vukovi: Interview

Jess sat down with Vukovi a while back and chatted about what's going on with their hectic scheduel since the debut release!

Noizze: So you guys have just released your self titled debut album and you been together seven years. How have you found the reception to your debut?

Janine: I felt like it was such a good turnout and people were singing, that’s not what I expected. That moment for me was kind of like “this album means something, this album has done something for us.”

Jason: You notice stuff online, don’t you? You also notice stuff at shows but we came here like everyone sang along to our songs.

Janine: There’s so many amazing bands playing today and we were clashing with some fucking amazing bands. That for me means a lot, the fact that people are leaving half way through a set to go catch us but bands but it seemed to get busier and busier.

How do you feel how you’ve evolved and what’s your favourite thing about your evolution as a bad?

Jason: I really like the we’ve always stuck at the band and I think we’ve always enjoyed it and seen a potential. Seeing over time that we’ve been able to improved in ways that we weren’t able to predict it’s been really cool. Building a tight knit team around us whose opinion we value and who’ve got a lot of industry experience.

Jan: I think we’ve been fucked about so much when we first become a band, and thankfully it didn't ruin us. I think that happens to a lot of bands. Hence why it took so long for us to get an album out. It just didn’t feel right because we didn’t have a big team around us but that moment when we were like “we like the team, we feel more confident” and it was just a massive climax.

You’re currently on tour with support from Inklings and Press To Meco. How’s tour been so far?

Jan: It’s only been two shows but good. We’ve been playing places we’ve not really been to that much and our expectations are very low because we don’t know what to expect. So far so good though!

Do you guys have any rituals before you go on stage?

Jan: Get as drunk as possible, haha!

Jason: We’re quite lame, we don’t really have a ritual but we probably should do or at least have a story. I feel like we should make up one right now.

Jan: We tried a shisha yesterday.

After the Slam Dunk dates you’re playing, what are your plans for the rest of the year?

Jason: More festivals.

Jan: We’re hoping to get a few more singles out and shoot a video for the next song. We’ve got more things in the pipeline for the end of the year that we can’t really talk about now but we want to have some time to cool off. I think it’s been a pretty good year for us so fan.

Jason: We’re doing some pretty big festivals like 2000 Trees, Reading and Leeds, Y Not and the Glasgow Festival, which’ll be amazing.

Jan: The Glasgow Festival will be really good, there’s something about playing your hometown. I do feel really intimidated when we do this though, like why do we do this, it’s not until afterwards that we get the buzz.

What’s your favourite thing about playing live?

Jason: It’s probably the change in mood you’re in after the show. Before you go on, I feel quite in my shell but once we come off it feels like a totally world afterwards.

Colin: It’s the transition between the fans at the start and the end of our set, especially if they’re new fans, just the look on their face. It’s the taking people by surprise.

Jan: I’m going to get dark for a minute but I always feel like music industry and mental health go hand in hand. Being in the music industry, being in a band, your fucking emotions are all over the place. There’s not really any routine.

Jason: You do weeks and months of one thing and then weeks and months of another thing.

Jan: Then you go to things like this, that we’ve never been to before, so you turn up and you get nervous and then worry it’s going you come off stage.

Jason: The writing process creates different stresses too. You worry that you can do better than this.

Jan: It’s so addictive. It’s the best and the worst. Then you get home and you don’t know what to with yourself. You can see why bands like Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones are still touring after so long. It’s just so addictive.

Just one final question, May is mental health awareness month. How important do you feel it is to talk about it, especially working in the music industry?

Jan: Like I said, the music industry and mental health go hand in hand so I think it’s worth saying that.

Jason: It ties in really well with our fans. There’s a really strong community of our fans who communicate with each other and they relate to our song ‘Weirdo’, and embrace everyone else in this community. They come together and get so happy over going to see bands and we have this great vehicle to promote that.

Jan: I made it very clear and in a lot of press that this album is based on mental health. I hope people can connect to it and find some comfort in it. That’s our job done.